Board deadlocks over how heavily to invest in hedge funds, with public employees pushing for 4 percent cap

It was supposed to be another staid meeting of the board that oversees New Jersey’s $71 billion public-employee pension system. It ended with a dramatic deadlocked vote on a key policy issue -- how heavily pension assets should be invested in hedge funds -- and an equally dramatic threat from one veteran board member to immediately tender his resignation.

Just to keep the volume pumped up there were accusations from an audience brimming with frustrated public-worker union members that the male-dominated board was doing too much “mansplaining.”

Jersey City to be the first city in the state to offer health benefits to transgender employees, announced Mayer Steven Fulop during a press conference at City Hall on Sept 22, 2015. Jesse Brothers | The Jersey Journal

Their approach is as simple as it is compassionate: A transgender person should use the restroom that corresponds with his or her gender identity.

Years from now, historian will scratch their heads and wonder how this basic civil rights issue got so tangled up in bathroom politics – and why fear and hysteria won out over common sense for so long.

Members of the LGBT community and their advocates were justifiably outraged, charging that the measure not only subjects transgender individuals to dangerous harassment, but also denies basic human rights to an entire class of people.